


About Sleep and Coffee and the Existence of Fate

by Atiki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anal Sex, Belly Rubs, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Oral Sex, Sherlock talks in his sleep, Very Ugly Coffee Mug, chapters stand more or less alone, let's get those idiots engaged, literally so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-11 13:51:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3328727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atiki/pseuds/Atiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naturally, John was startled when suddenly the ultimate solution occurred to him: <i>Marriage.</i> This was, of course, a bit of a fundamental problem rather than an actual solution. One didn't simply use the words “Sherlock” and “marriage” within the same sentence. Not even in a hypothetical context.<br/> <br/>(Five times John kind of wanted to propose to Sherlock, and one time he didn’t have to.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Long Legs in Copenhagen

I.

 

A general consensus had been found about the fact that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were sleeping together. This was not exactly news. People looked at them and _\--_ simply thought they _knew_ what was going on between them.

John wasn’t a hundred percent sure why this was happening.

 

The thing was, people were right, of course. They hadn’t always been, but now they definitely were, and Sherlock and John dealt with it like British men of a certain age and with a healthy degree of emotional constipation tend to deal with situations that involve acknowledging romantic attachments in public: They just didn’t.

They were not a demonstrative couple, they didn’t address each other with ridiculous pet names and the most openly affectionate thing Sherlock had ever done for John was to warn him that a detached arm was inhabited by parasitic worms _before_ throwing it in his direction. Their public image was well defined, and it didn't include any of this... sentimental rubbish. No kisses or affectionate touches in front of other people. Absolutely no room for innuendos. They weren’t randy teenagers. (Well. They weren't teenagers.)

John wasn't ashamed or anything. He simply didn't understand why everyone was so damn interested in his love life, now that it involved one Sherlock Holmes.

 

Leaving crime scenes together was the worst of all.

Police officers, forensics technicians, clients, all those people who barely knew them gave them suggestive looks and winks and this insufferable _we-all-know-what's-going-to-happen-when-you-two-get-home_ expression. Sometimes there were _catcalls_ , for God’s sakes. And whistling. It made John want to _scream_.

Alright, so people knew they were privately at it. John was okay with that. Perfectly okay. They'd been together for over twenty months. It wasn't a bloody secret.

Apparently people were also well-acquainted with the effect of adrenaline on the male libido and even your average idiot from across the street (God, now John was starting to think like Sherlock) could make a little deduction. John was alright with that, too. That was general knowledge.

What people didn’t know ( _Ha!)_ was that solving a case didn’t necessarily culminate in flying buttons and wild shagging. They thought adrenaline-fuelled sex was all there was to it. That was, at least partly, the reason why John found the assumptions so annoying. People thought they knew what happened inside 221B Baker Street after cases. _But they bloody didn't._

 

What no one except John and Sherlock knew, was that there were in fact two types of post-case nights. Two significantly different types.

 

Type one post-case nights usually happened after short, easily-solvable cases. Those where Sherlock proved his cleverness by deducing a murderer out of a cigar box and successfully ruined the reputation of at least three innocent witnesses. Sometimes those cases came with a nice little chase through a park or a museum, and maybe someone got shot towards the end (mostly it was neither Sherlock nor John, which was a pleasant coincidence).

When they returned home after a case like that, a type one post-case night was due, which usually involved lots of frantic kissing and tearing at coats and jumpers. And gasps and sighs and shared breath, and half-clothed rutting against some very unfortunate piece of furniture en route between the stairs and the bedroom. In other words, about what you’d expect. It was adrenaline and glucocorticoids mingling with endorphines, and afterwards, it was like coming down from an altitude flight. It was frightening. Frighteningly glorious. John couldn't say he particularly minded type one post-case nights.

 

Type two post-case nights, however, involved nothing of the sort. Long, exhausting cases (non-boring locked room triple homicides, exhausting stake-outs and the like) usually prompted Sherlock to refuse food and sleep for days on end, while John was busy running after him and keeping him hydrated.

When a long, tiresome case was concluded and they were finally on their way home, neither of them was in a physical condition that would have made anything resembling sex remotely possible. That’s why type two post-case nights existed and tended to happen far more frequently than type one. Type two post-case nights entailed, above all, one activity: Sleeping.

 

Today was a typical _type two post-case night_ -night.

Over the course of nearly three days, they had searched every inch of a biochemist’s laboratory, which had resulted in the securing of a prototypal bioweapon and a lot of trouble for the man who had built it.

Sherlock hadn’t slept in fifty-three hours. (John hadn’t slept in twenty-nine, which was more than long enough, thank you very much.) The state of Sherlock’s eyes had surpassed _red and glassy_ and was now bordering _bloodshot,_ and they had that vaguely manic glow to them that tended to unsettle people a bit.

When the Yard had finally arrested the biochemist and everyone was free to go home, both Sherlock and John were so bloody knackered that the adrenaline high was over before they’d even left the laboratory. John felt like he could fall asleep standing. Sherlock was alarmingly pale, swayed slightly back and forth and looked all around like he felt even worse.

Sherlock very nearly fell asleep in the back of their cab to Baker Street, huddled up to John, mumbling tiredly into his shoulder, and John barely managed to keep him awake long enough to drag him upstairs and into the bedroom. He actually got him out of his clothes somehow, and, even more unbelievably, into a pair of pyjama bottoms. Sherlock sat at the edge of the bed like a limp puppet the entire time and was really not helping. In fact, he was so incredibly passive that is seemed like he wasn’t entirely _present_. Already asleep maybe? Christ, it had never been this bad before. John couldn’t help but grin as he took Sherlock’s shoes off, lazily tugged at his socks and tossed them away.

When John was done, he gave Sherlock a gentle shove. Sherlock simply fell over sideways, landed elegantly on his pillow, gave a contented grunt and started to snore. John rearranged him a bit (couldn’t let him sleep with thirteen miles of lanky detective still hanging out of the bed). Sherlock grumbled at that without waking up.

When John had finally undressed and was ready to crawl into bed, Sherlock’s mouth had dropped open and he was nuzzling softly into his pillow. John brushed an errant curl away from his temple as he cuddled up to him, careful not to ruffle the bed sheets too much. John efficiently draped himself over Sherlock, as usual. (That was really the best way to describe their sleeping arrangement. – The one who fell asleep first usually ended up halfway underneath the other one. They awoke sweaty and hot and in a tangle of limbs, and neither of them minded.) Sleeping Sherlock seemed to approve of this, because he wiggled around contentedly until his face was pressed into John’s chest. Very agreeable.

 

Sleeping should have been the next item on John's agenda. Absolutely.

 

The thing was, Sherlock talked while falling asleep, and when he was asleep, he kept talking. He pretty much always did. John had never told him, despite the fact that they’d been sharing a bed for nearly two years now. It was annoying, at times, not being able to sleep at 3 am because Sherlock kept rambling about the epidemiology of chicken pox or started to recite poems in a language that may or may not have been French. John had become used to it, though. Most times, he didn’t even wake up.

Today, Sherlock was extremely excited about something in a corner. “Not… John, not in the co… co… corner,” he mumbled into John’s chest. His face was practically squashed into John’s thin white cotton t-shirt and he was _drooling_. John wiped a bit of spit away from his upper lip and cradled him even closer.

Sherlock made a slurping noise, wriggled a bit more and locked his arms around John’s waist. “ _It’th_ in the corner, John,” he said conspiratorially. “ _Promithe_ you won’t look in the corner, John. Dangerou… _th_. Danger… _outh_.” (Yes. When Sherlock talked in his sleep, the lisp was… a thing. John kind of liked it. A lot actually.)

John’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Sherlock was definitely fast asleep. Completely caught up in a dream, too, as it seemed, judging by the twitching of his eyelids. REM-phase, right?

“Too many _legth_ , John. Tho, _thoooo_ many _legth_ ,” Sherlock mumbled excitedly. And frowned. A crinkle appeared between his eyebrows. “Loooong _legth_ , tiny feet.” Sherlock pressed his nose more firmly into John’s chest.

 

John loved this ridiculous creature. So much. It was incredible.

 

And right there, with a sleeping and mumbling Sherlock cuddled up to him in their bed, it happened for the first time. That strange epiphany. The one where John kind of realised that he wanted Sherlock. In every way possible. In more ways than he already had him. (And he had him in _almost_ every way possible, at that point.)

John was tired of pretending. Tired of letting people think that what they had was anything less than a lifelong arrangement. Tired of people assuming that their relationship served the sole purpose of having a mindless shag every other day, because their blood adrenaline levels demanded it.

For the very first time in his life, John didn't merely acknowledge that Sherlock was the single most important person in the world for him. He had accepted that years ago. For the first time, John wanted the world to know it.

He was so damn proud of loving Sherlock.

 

Anyway. This was a strange, sleepy train of thought to begin with, so naturally, John was a bit startled when suddenly the ultimate solution occurred to him. _Marriage_.

This was, of course, a bit of a fundamental problem rather than an actual solution. One didn't simply use the words “Sherlock” and “marriage” within the same sentence. Not even in a hypothetical context.

One didn’t bloody _propose_ to Sherlock Holmes.

 

John knew he couldn’t ask Sherlock to marry him. He couldn’t make some romantic declaration, bend down on one knee and fish a ring out of his pocket. Seriously, this was just ludicrous.

He could picture how that would end. Sherlock would smile a little cruel smile, call him an idiot and go back to whatever bloody experiment he would currently be conducting. He would pass it off as a joke. He would probably delete it. Christ, John would end up looking like... like the complete idiot he was.

No, John didn’t doubt that there was some kind of “happily ever after” for the two of them. There were certain risks, like the possibility of Sherlock accidentally poisoning John. Or John accidentally strangling Sherlock. But all in all, John thought, they had better chances than most couples. Mostly because they loved each other silly and so unconditionally that it probably should have been somewhat frightening, and being apart would probably kill them both within a fortnight.

Anyway. _Sherlock_ and _marriage_ didn’t work together.

Sherlock would most probably cringe at the mere thought of being called someone’s _husband._

John considered that, a few years ago, _he_ would have cringed at the thought of calling someone _his_ husband. (Even though he had happily called someone his wife, as the annoying voice in his head reminded him eloquently. He brushed the thought away.)

Sherlock was something else, though, wasn’t he? Sherlock Holmes wasn’t just unmarried. He was as unmarried as it gets. Unmarried on a higher level than your average unmarried person.

Sherlock found public display of emotional attachment useless and immature and laughable. He’d consider signing a piece of paper that would hypothetically bind him to another person for the rest of his life far beneath him. Apart from that, he was the most devout atheist imaginable and about as prone to attending social events as a grumpy Boa Constrictor.

So why on _earth_ did the concept of getting married to the drooling, snoring, beautiful marvel that was Sherlock _Bloody_ Holmes feel so frighteningly right all of a sudden?

 

At this point, Sherlock interrupted John’s ruminating by telling him “The corner, Ja… Jaw… John. Three _legth_ already in Switzerland.” Then he grunted and shut up again. John kissed his temple.

 

This wasn’t actually the first time John pondered over the concept of marriage, of course. John had already been married. To a pretty woman with a lovely smile who had unintentionally ripped Sherlock’s heart out and then, very intentionally, put a bullet through it. John had, on all accounts, been very, _very_ married. With a priest and a reception, with folded serviettes and a honeymoon and absolutely everything. And a nasty divorce.

Sherlock would _loathe_ this. Not the shooting and the dying - that was pretty much everyday life (even though it was somewhat preferable not to have Sherlock on the receiving end). Not the divorce, either. The wedding stuff. Another ceremony. Speeches and vows and cake and tuxedos. He couldn’t make Sherlock go through this again, could he?

This was pointless. Sherlock wouldn’t say yes in the first place and if John ever did something completely insane, like proposing on the spot, he would definitely regret it. Better not waste another second of thought on it. John was absolutely knackered, anyway. He decided that it was about time to go to sleep.

John attempted to kiss Sherlock good night, missed his lips and accidentally kissed the tip of his nose instead. It twitched in response to this. Sherlock grumbled a bit, said, “not Munich. Copenhagen, _Copenhagen_ ,” with great sincerity, and went back to his snoring. And he kept snoring, after that. He had said everything of importance, as it seemed. He was done being chatty and slept like a baby and John wasn’t sure if he could actually stand how much he loved him.

“Good night,” John whispered, mere seconds before he fell asleep, and didn’t get a response from the slumbering man in his arms. Not even about long legs. Or tiny feet. Or Copenhagen.

 

\---

 

The next morning, Sherlock blew up his breakfast egg (blasting agent in the salt shaker, accident) and told John that he had dreamed about chasing giant spiders through Europe.

Well, that made sense.

Sherlock then proceeded to pour fruit schnaps into a beer glass, added a few drops of stale milk, heated the diabolic mixture and dipped a human thumb into it. The resulting smell made John’s toes curl. Not in a pleasant way. Sherlock kept the bloody beer glass in place over his Bunsen burner, pretended to ignore the smell and turned slightly greener with every passing minute.

By the time John scraped exploded egg yolk off the ceiling while Sherlock was busy throwing up in the bathroom, John had _almost_ forgotten that ten hours ago he’d kind of wanted to marry him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! This is my first 5+1 fic! I promise it will live up to its rating before the last chapter! Because porn is cool!


	2. Alcove Epiphany

II.

 

John was used to running for his life.

He had carried a dying friend through a hail of bullets once, unarmed, hopeless and resigned to his fate. He had been shot while stitching up bullet wounds in the middle of a battle field. He had been chased by gun-wielding murderers and mad stalkers, an entire Puerto Rican drug cartel on one memorable occasion. And, what had been even worse, by twenty goddamned paparazzi after that thing with the beheaded actress.

He really _was_ used to it. Just like he was used to finding freshly coagulated blood in his favourite tea mug. Or human bone splinters blocking the drain when he tried to clean aforementioned mug. No big deal. Living with Sherlock Holmes made you partial to blood and gore and adrenaline highs with a touch of deadly terror, he supposed.

John would never get used to seeing Sherlock run for his life, though.

 

\---

 

The door at the end of the scarcely lit gallery flew open with an audible crack and a Belstaff-clad, shadowy figure rapidly moved towards John. Sherlock ran like his life depended on it (which it most probably did), gasping and out of breath, his coat swishing behind him, adding wonderfully to the dramatic effect. Sherlock’s gaze darted around the gallery as he ran, scanning every inch of the walls frantically. He was looking for a hiding place. Quite desperately, too.

John sucked in a sharp breath.

A part of John was glad to see Sherlock alive, of course. Another part was terrified (because when Sherlock was running like that, there was definitely someone or _something_ coming after him). And the rest of John was really fucking bloody angry, because ‘ _don’t fret, John, I’m going in there alone, I am in control of this’_ wasn’t quite happening right now. Trust Sherlock to underestimate a bunch of contract killers who were apparently having a bit of a conference in the museum they’d been searching for the body of their latest victim.

The gallery was long. If those men were indeed chasing Sherlock, they were going to see him the moment they came through the door and most probably Sherlock wouldn’t have reached the end of the gallery by then.

There was no escape. Bloody hell, now they were both trapped in this gallery and those contract killers were definitely armed. There was nothing John could do. Except--

 

John hurled himself in Sherlock’s way, grabbed two hands full of his coat and pulled him into the tiny alcove he’d been hiding in.

Sherlock made a sort of squawking noise and was actually too startled to react in time. It took him approximately two seconds to realise what had happened (which was a stupidly long time given that we are talking about, well, the fastest set of brain cells in the country). And then Sherlock stared at John like John was a bloody _miracle_ , pupils blown wide, curls sticking out in every direction, the thrill of the chase, the delight he took in it written in his face.

Suddenly, John was having a hard time being angry with him.

“Oh,” Sherlock gasped out breathlessly, eyes still sparkling in the scarce lighting, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead, “brilliant, John.” John couldn’t help but smile at him. (This was probably an inappropriate thing to do when you were trying to hide from a bunch of murderers, but who the hell cared at this point?)

“Blakely,” Sherlock panted excitedly, pressing himself against John so they were both successfully hidden in the alcove, his face only inches from John's. Then, without further ado, he went full deduction mode. Couldn't wait to prove his cleverness. “Blakely had a deal with Alvarez," Sherlock explained hastily and accidentally bumped his nose against John's, "the entire time. This is brilliant, John. This may be an _eight_. Blakely stole the statue and Alvarez bashed that investment banker’s head in with it. Then Alvarez betrayed him, stole the statue, tried to make Blakely look suspicious. Blakely is here to confront him. It was completely obvious, as soon as i saw the cigarette in Blakely’s shirt pocket and the corpse is...” John pressed his left hand firmly on Sherlock’s mouth. “Nnmmmuuumffff,“ Sherlock finished.

For God’s sakes. John was one hundred per cent sure that this madman was going to sign their death warrant by rattling out his latest deduction while John was trying to save his arse. ( _His_ madman, John corrected himself and felt frighteningly pleased by this for a fraction of a second. Oh, and _his_ arse, too.)  “Quiet,” John hissed. “They saw you, didn’t they? They’re going to hear us.”

John removed his hand from Sherlock’s face with extreme caution, prepared to put it back exactly where it had been, should the need arise. (A part of him expected Sherlock to continue his monologue like an audio tape that had been paused, so he was better off being prepared. Also, Sherlock had bitten people before. One could never know.)

Sherlock glared at him, but he actually shut up, which took John a little by surprise.

They both listened. John pressed his nose into Sherlock’s neck, breathed in the smell of Sherlock’s hair, a mixture of soap and expensive shampoo and sweat and dust, and John just thought that he could have lost himself a little in it, when all of a sudden, Sherlock’s body stiffened against his. John registered the reason around two seconds later. Footsteps, followed by muffled voices and the sound of the door being opened again.

Alvarez and Blakely were entering the gallery, as it seemed. Sherlock pressed himself even more firmly against John, his coat enveloping them both as efficiently as possible, succeeding in making them nearly invisible in the dark alcove. John held his breath.

“I know he’s here,” said a husky voice, “saw him turn to the right. He must be…”

“Just shut the fuck up,” another more high-pitched, slightly shaky voice interrupted.

The footsteps were coming closer. John, neatly tucked away between detective and stone wall, couldn’t see anything, which was hugely inconvenient. He felt like his heart was beating loud enough for everyone within a radius of a mile to hear it. This was going to end badly, this time it was going to end badly, he knew it.

 

A second later two men marched past their alcove. Without noticing them.

Morons.

John was feeling increasingly hot. Something was pooling in his lower abdomen, and he wasn't sure if it was anger or relief. He exhaled a bit too loudly. One of Sherlock’s curls tickled his nose and John was a bit afraid he was going to sneeze. Before he could make an attempt to get his reflexes under control, the door at the other end of the gallery snapped shut, indicating that their followers had left. Danger averted.

Thank fucking god.

 

Neither Sherlock nor John moved for a stupidly long time, until Sherlock broke the strangely comfortable silence.

“What you did, John,” he whispered in John’s ear, finally, when Alvarez and Blakely were definitely out of earshot, "was quite... considerate. Now, let's follow them. There has to be an Ancient Greek statue dripping with blood somewhere. This is like Christmas." He bounced up and down excitedly.

Yep. The heat in John's abdomen was definitely anger. And it was flaming up down there.  "Considerate, am I?" he asked dangerously.

"Yes." Sherlock frowned at him, as if there was absolutely no reason for John to question this.

John snorted. _Considerate_. Not " _John, I owe you a thousand apologies for running off without you and thank you for saving my life"_ or something like that. "Quite considerate", was it? That was an all-time low, even for Sherlock. The man showed more gratitude towards a goddamn sandwich if he coincidentally felt like eating. God, sometimes John wished all the John-Ex-Machina lifesaving he was doing could be a little more appreciated.

"You-" he started, then thought the better of it. Sherlock wasn't even paying attention to him any longer. He looked like he was already concentrating hard, plotting their next move. Not that John would have liked to know what said next move was going to be.

Sherlock released him a second later (when had his arms gone around John's waist?), took a step out of their alcove, peered around the corner for another four seconds and, without further warning, made a dash.

 

And that’s when it happened again. That precise moment.

 

John stared after Sherlock, motionlessly standing in his alcove, just for a second or so. Watched him rush towards the end of the gallery, footsteps echoing in his ears and everything, and it hit him that he was happily going to run after this idiot for the rest of his life. And that he was proud of it. That he would like everyone to know it. It didn't matter that Sherlock took him for granted. It was absolutely irrelevant that Sherlock would never appreciate John as much as John appreciated him. This was the life John had chosen to live. Full stop. This was their weird, twisted "happily ever after". This, right here.

And then, just for another fraction of a second, John thought he could see something sparkle on Sherlock’s ring finger. Something shiny... something like a ring, perhaps. It was a trick the lighting was playing on him, of course, or maybe he was just hallucinating because this entire day had been insane. (Good grief, his entire life was insane.) Obviously, Sherlock wasn’t wearing a ring. And John had no reason to imagine him wearing one. Right?

_Right_?

Well. Who was he kidding?

Right here, in an alcove in the gallery of an old museum, John imagined Sherlock was wearing his ring. He couldn’t even help it.

John had always prided himself on being a rational person. More or less. He had a habit of thinking before he spoke, he made plans he generally stuck to, and he didn’t do things on impulse, unless it was absolutely necessary. (Sometimes he spontaneously shot or sprained or concussed someone, but we don’t talk about that, and it was usually Sherlock’s fault, so it didn’t really count.)

And here he was, trying to keep himself from shouting “Marry me!” after a complete lunatic who was running into the arms of two convicted criminals because there was nothing more interesting to do _this bloody afternoon_.

 

John took another deep breath. Allowed himself to breathe deeply for a few seconds to calm down. And then, of course, John stepped out of his alcove and took up the chase.

Because Sherlock Holmes wasn’t going to get engaged tonight, but he wasn’t going to get himself killed either. And if John had to save his goddamn life for the fifth time since breakfast, then so be it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, you're still reading! Thank you!
> 
> I'm planning on updating this every day, at least for the first five chapters. :) 
> 
> Next chapter consists entirely of armchair sex, because that's how I roll. See you tomorrow for plotless porn?


	3. Chair Sex Chapter

III.

 

Sherlock Holmes was actually quite fond of sex.

John still found that a bit unbelievable which was odd since he was the person Sherlock was currently having sex with. Coincidentally, John was also the only person Sherlock had ever had sex with.

_Sherlock and sex_ was a concept one sort of... had to get a grip on. John still wasn't used to approaching him like that - as his lover, so clearly, intimately human in his presence. And Sherlock was indeed marvellously human, laid bare without his battle dress. He sweated, flushed, got goosebumps. He shivered. He made embarrassing noises, was ticklish around his belly button. He liked having his forehead kissed and his breath smelt sour in the morning. And, what was most endearing, he had that tiny, thin, barely palpable layer of fat around his middle that only John had ever been allowed to touch.

When John undressed Sherlock, he didn’t merely take his clothes off. He took his _armour_ off. The coat, the scarf, the façade. Uncovered something underneath that still made him strangely breathless.

 

It wasn’t that the clever detective everyone knew, the unapproachable, odd genius, wasn’t the real Sherlock. That was rubbish. The real Sherlock was just like that: rude, arrogant and intimidating, so skilled with details but entirely unable to figure out how people worked. He was an inconsiderate arsehole. A brilliant one. And unbelievably, Sherlock was perfectly capable of being an annoying git during sex, too. (That was actually kind of an exception, but still.)

Sherlock behaving like a sexual creature was still quite something, though, even after having been part of it all for two years. (Having been responsible for it, in fact.)

It was the way Sherlock could _let go_ that intrigued John so much. The way he gave up the last bit of control he had over himself and surrendered to his own body, turning into a creature made entirely of carnal pleasure, of undisguised, raw enjoyment.

Well, whatever Sherlock did, he was bound to go a bit overboard with it, wasn’t he?

It was a privilege to see him like this. John knew that.

 

It was, admittedly, also so fucking hot that it made John ruminate about the fact that he was probably too old and too British to be this horny all the time.

 

\---

 

But poetic musings about the vulnerable sexual creature at the very core of Sherlock Holmes aside, let’s get down to business:

It was evening. The living room of 221B Baker Street was bathed in the colours of an early sunset. John and Sherlock were home early, content, comfortable and well-rested. And they were about to shag in the sitting room because snogging after takeaway had become a bit heated, and they hadn't quite made it to the bed.

Their clothes were scattered all over the floor. An open lube bottle had disappeared somewhere between the kitchen table (where they had started) and John’s chair (where they were now). The window was ajar, for some reason, and some not very convincing part of John’s lizard brain kept telling him that they probably ought to keep _fucking quiet_ (keep the fucking quiet?) in order to prevent the entire street from hearing them.

A few seconds later he had forgotten about the godforsaken window, because _oh God_.

Sherlock was in John’s lap, naked and writhing. He was panting, but otherwise completely silent, concentrating hard, as he slowly lowered himself onto John’s cock. John stroked along his thighs, almost soothingly, willing himself not to move as Sherlock glanced down at him, eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted.

John could see the head of his cock slip inside him. He could feel the muscle give for him, could sense the first tremor surge through Sherlock, making him tremble around John as he slowly, very slowly, held him in place and guided him into his body.

“John,” Sherlock whispered helplessly, when the head of John's cock had barely passed his entrance, his hips jerking forward, clearly in spite of himself. Both men groaned simultaneously, John’s embarrassingly high-pitched breathless exhale mingling with Sherlock’s dramatic baritone. It was nearly hilarious, except it wasn’t, because Sherlock was positively _quivering_ in John’s arms.

“Easy,” John breathed.

John leant back further, let his head fall against the back of the chair. “Take your time, love. Bear down for me. Go on.”

Sherlock’s breath hitched audibly at the soft encouragement.

John sucked in a deep, shallow breath. His heart was hammering violently, protesting against the overwhelming sensation, the sweet torture of Sherlock slowly getting into the right position to ride him. Sherlock continued to sink further, still going slow, achingly slow, deliciously tight and hot around John’s cock. His hips bucked forward once more when John was about halfway sheathed and he made rhythmic, whimpering noises which John wasn't sure he was aware of. Then he stilled, sighed deeply, closed his eyes.

John knew the feeling Sherlock was fighting against right now, the aching fullness, the point where it all became a bit alarming and it seemed impossible to take more. They had time.

He let his fingers glide from Sherlock’s knee (delightfully knobbly) to his hip-bone (slightly too prominent), gently stroking strong muscles and straining tendons that seemed to go impossibly more tense under his clever fingertips.

Sherlock exhaled audibly. His cock twitched upward as he slowly pushed down, inch for inch, until his arse was flush against John’s hips and John was fully sheathed.

The angle was a bit unfortunate in this position, especially because they couldn’t kiss properly. (John had to lean back as far as he could and Sherlock was too bloody tall to keep both his arse and his face in place at the same time, but it was alright. Chair sex was always worth it.)

Sherlock held onto the armrests of John’s chair with both hands, his breath coming in shallow bursts. He shivered and John tightened his grip on his thighs, keeping him firmly in place. The soft hair on Sherlock’s thighs felt like silk under John’s fingertips. John did his best to keep himself from thrusting upwards, into the tight velvety heat Sherlock’s body offered. He needed to give Sherlock a minute to adjust, he knew that, but G _od_ , it felt _so_ good, it was almost _fucking cruel_.

“S’okay,” John murmured, although a more primal part of his conscious mind was screaming that it wasn’t anywhere near okay unless he could fuck Sherlock senseless within the next few minutes. John composed himself (God bless a soldier’s self-control) and let his right hand slip higher until it rested on Sherlock’s hip. “You’re okay. Come here, hm?” (This was a bit of a ridiculous request, of course, since Sherlock was already very, very _here_.) John wrapped his other arm around Sherlock’s waist. Sherlock rocked forward, did his best to get closer without letting John slip out of him. He glanced down, concentrating, then raised his head a bit, sucked in a sharp breath, slowly let his mouth drop open -- and John just stared. God, Sherlock looked… _young_. With his eyes wide, pupils nearly eclipsing his irises. His curls were sweaty and tousled, his cheeks flushed from desire, excitement and the effort of keeping still.

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, groaned softly. Then he moved his hips forward deliberately for the first time. His movements were achingly slow, experimental, his entire body tense. The flush that had started on his neck when they’d been kissing had spread all over his pale skin, from his chest down his belly. His cock, with a slight upward curve and flushed deep red, twitched helplessly, practically begging for friction. Sherlock was still shaking.

He was so open, defenseless, vulnerable like this. Incredible. John could have come just from watching him. He bit his lip.

“Beautiful.” John slowly let his hand glide from Sherlock’s hip to the small of his back and began to draw lazy circles on his skin. “So brilliant, Sherlock. So beautiful.”

“Yes,” Sherlock breathed and began to roll his hips gently. He started out with careful, smooth movements, still so very controlled while his body was already trying to overpower him, to come undone, to surrender.

John watched the very first bead of precome appear at his slit as Sherlock’s cock moved gently up and down, in time with every soft movement of his hips. Slowly, achingly slowly, the drop trickled down the dark red head of his cock. It was nearly clear, that very first drop. Crystalline liquid, leaving a trail down the shaft before it disappeared in Sherlock's surprisingly light pubic hair.

John ached to take Sherlock in hand, to feel him properly, to stroke Sherlock to completion while he was buried inside him. It wasn’t time yet. Not yet.

Sherlock stilled for a few long seconds, let his hand trail down John’s chest, follow the soft curve of his pectorals, let it rest right above is heart. Then he raised himself onto his knees, lets John slip out of him, just halfway, before pressing back down, drawing John’s full length into his body once more. Sherlock sighed quietly as he repeated the process. He steadied himself with a hand on John’s chest, the other one still curled around the armrest, and set a new pace, moving his hips up and down as languidly and calmly as he could possibly manage.

John’s hand on Sherlock’s back was dancing now, drawing circles, twisted lines, meaningless patterns. Writing a lazy symphony or probably just the soft echo of their coupling into his skin.

Sherlock was still shivering, his breathing becoming increasingly ragged as he slowly moved up and down in John’s lap. John glanced down, saw where they were connected, where Sherlock’s body was open for him, just for him, and John would be damned if this wasn’t the single most erotic thing he’d ever seen. He felt himself breaking out in sweat.

John's abdominal muscles were getting tense. His thighs were twitching under Sherlock's weights. He wouldn’t be able to let the build-up last much longer. John was beginning to feel like his heart was stuttering. The urge to thrust up into Sherlock above him was on the verge of getting unbearable. John tilted his head back, sucked in a sharp breath and exhaled. Sherlock promptly mirrored him, made a sound so deep and distant - it had to come from somewhere deep inside his chest - as he steadily rode John towards oblivion. God, it was _decadent_. It was so... _dizzyingly good_.

And it definitely couldn’t stay that way.

John’s spine curved and his hips twitched upwards in spite of himself, when Sherlock sank down onto him once more, just a hint faster this time.

“God, Sherlock," he groaned, suddenly feeling nearly desperate, "I need... quicker.”

“I share this sentiment,” Sherlock breathed, pushing down against John’s hips. (John was a bit astonished by how articulate he was at that stage).

“I’m going to move, right?” John whispered.

“Please.” Sherlock glanced down at John through his lashes, his deep-red lips forming an 'o', like he was completely astonished, like John beneath him was startling him infinitely. He let his tongue dart out and run along his cupid’s bow. And that, then, was it. The most primitive part of John’s animal brain pretty much took over, and he did what his body was aching for. What his body was bloody _made for_ , in this exact moment.

He _fucked_.

John grabbed Sherlock’s hips, hard enough to leave a few finger shaped bruises (probably), held them firmly in place and thrust upwards.

“Yes,” Sherlock bit out, sounding almost relieved. Hebent a bit forward and clutched John’s biceps, held on tight. “Keep... faster, John.”

John was more than happy to comply. He snapped his hips, over and over, fucked up into Sherlock, and Sherlock pushed down eagerly, meeting every thrust with surprising precision. They set a pace together, going faster with every single thrust.

It was silent now, except for John’s harsh breathing, the huge gulps of air Sherlock was taking, the sound of slick flesh and passion of sex that made the air heavy. John could smell it, taste it, musk and salt and iron and desire. He braced his feet against the floor and thrust faster. That was the part where sweet, languid lovemaking turned into something more primal. It was giving in to an instinct, it was losing control, it was finally allowing himself to claim every inch of the gorgeous man astride him. It was a race towards completion, and they were both going to win it.

Sherlock was getting close first. John could feel it in the way Sherlock trembled, clenched around him. His grip on John’s upper arm tightened minutely with each of John’s upward thrusts.

“Oh,” Sherlock breathed, his first vocalisation in quite some time, as his orgasm approached, “John, I—Please.”

John understood very well what Sherlock was begging for. He closed his fist around Sherlock’s flushed cock, smeared the already dripping precome down the shaft and stroked. Fast movements. Efficient. Neither of them was going to last at that point, and fucking hell, neither of them would try.

Sherlock tensed again when John rubbed his thumb over his slick glans, shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh God, oh God, John,” he whimpered.

“Yes,” John hissed between grit teeth, “that’s it, love. Gorgeous. Come on.”

“John, I’m... I’m going to --“

“Yes, m’close, come on.” John thrust as hard as he could, gave Sherlock’s leaking cock two more firm strokes, and finally, blessedly pushed him over the edge.

Sherlock’s entire body convulsed, his mouth dropped open and he came with a breathless cry. He trembled as John stroked him through it, his cock pulsing as he spillt hotly over John's hand. Sherlock's eyes flew open when he was done. He blinked down at John, overwhelmed and lost, only just surfacing from whatever part of his subconscious he had just descended into. He looked close to collapsing.

It was all John could do to keep him upright as he thrust once more, as deep as he could. He felt Sherlock tensing up once more as the first aftershocks of his orgasm hit him, heard him whisper his name, breathing shallowly in his arms, and that was all John could take. His fingers dug into Sherlock’s hips and he gasped helplessly, an endless litany of praise, of love, of Sherlock’s name, as he found his release inside him.

 

\---

 

Sherlock let himself fall into John’s waiting arms. It took them quite some time to get their breath back. (And a less alarmingly high heart rate.)

John embraced Sherlock tight, pressed feather light kisses to every inch of his flushed cheeks.

Sherlock blinked at him, almost sleepily. He always got delightfully tired after sex. And clingy. Not that John minded. Sherlock wiggled down a bit, still firmly perched in John’s lap, buried his face in John’s neck and inhaled deeply.

“You alright?” John asked quietly.

Sherlock rubbed his nose against John’s Adam's apple and hummed. This counted as a yes.

Sherlock breathed John in. That was really the most adequate way to describe what he did. He nosed John’s neck, his jaw line, his collar bones, inhaling deeply, letting out one quiet contented sigh after another. John rested his chin on the top of his head and closed his eyes.

"Don't... let go of me just yet," Sherlock demanded quietly.

John smiled. "Of course not."

They stayed like that, and John felt so strangely, utterly at peace with himself. Even though his legs began to hurt under Sherlock’s weight and they were sweaty and sticky and Sherlock’s come was drying on their bellies. John was going to hold Sherlock as long as Sherlock needed to be held.

They quietly entered the familiar state of post-coital daze. Seconds passed and their cooling blood rushed through their veins, and John could very easily have shed a tear about how really fucking wonderful it all was, had he been so inclined. John had never had felt like that in a physical relationship. He had never experienced this degree of protectiveness, of _possessiveness_ for a person in his arms. This was a bit odd, because Sherlock was, on all accounts, the physically strongest lover he’d ever had. Sherlock was perfectly capable of taking what he wanted. He didn’t need coddling. Theoretically.

John’s chest was burning for that odd man breathing shallowly in his arms. He wanted to protect him, to make him feel cared for. John wanted him to understand, with every fibre of his being, that he was adored, as much as a one can possibly be adored. He wanted to take Sherlock, take everything of him, make him shatter and put him back together afterwards. He wanted to stretch him, fill him, kiss him, invade him. Claim him forever. And then, he wanted to surrender and let him do the exact same to him.

One should think that this whole _being stupidly and giddily in love_ business would have worn off after two years. It hadn’t though. Not for them. This was, John determined, the once-in-a-lifetime love everyone was looking for _, of fucking course_ it was. He had found it.

 

John needed to have Sherlock forever. He’d never been so sure before.

 

The thing is, you can’t ask someone to marry you directly after chair sex, for several reasons.

Firstly, they were sticky and sweaty and a little bit disgusting, John wasn’t sure if Sherlock was dozing or simply out cold, and they both needed a shower.

Secondly, you don’t make life changing decisions whilst on a wild post-coital hormone cocktail. For stuff like proposals, you need to have both parties in full command of their mental faculties, so to speak. And God, they both weren’t.

Sherlock breathed softly, let his lips glide along a tendon on John’s neck, pressed a light kiss to the pulse point. John sighed.

It was silent, very silent, and John’s senses slowly returned. He wasn’t sure they were welcome right now.

 

\---

 

“Hydrochloric acid,” Sherlock said approximately five minutes later (or hours, John had effectively lost track of time), his face still pressed firmly into John’s neck.

John eyed him fondly. “Experiment?”

“Hm. Yes. Shower first, I think.” Sherlock lifted his head, shook it and ran a hand through his curls which made him look even more delightfully debauched than before. He smiled. Just a simple, rare, unguarded smile.

John smiled back, a wide, toothy smile that only sort of happened when he lost control over his face. “Okay?” he asked, for no reason in particular.

Sherlock nodded. He gave John a strangely confused look, just for a few seconds (which is quite long for a man who is capable of deducing you down to your wisdom teeth within the blink of an eye), then went back to his smiling.

“Hm.” John rubbed his thumb over Sherlock’s cheek, let it rest on his temple. “What’s going on in there now?”

“Too much for you to even remotely catch up. Don’t get me started, it’s for your own good.”

So Sherlock’s sex-addled brain was back from hiatus. John chuckled. “You know we’ll need to get up sometime soon?”

Sherlock snorted grumpily, tightened his grip around John’s waist and leaned in to press a close-mouthed, almost chaste kiss on his lips. John kissed back lazily, marvelled about how beautifully Sherlock fit in his arms, how he was still now used to feeling him like this. In his entirety. Skin, bones and muscles, rushing blood and sweat and brilliance, so very human and... almost unreal at once.

John needed to know that this was going to last forever.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUZZ BUZZ HERE COMES THE PORN FAIRY
> 
> Do fairies buzz? I don't know, but I'm sort of buzzing right now.


	4. Criminally Awful Tableware

IV.

 

“You should buy me one of those." John pointed at a particularly hideous mug on a shelf at eyelevel. “I honestly think I kind of deserve it.”

“Oh, this one’s reduced,” announced the rather nervous porcelain shop owner (whom they were currently trying to convict of insurance fraud) from behind his counter. John gave Sherlock a triumphant look.

Sherlock bent over a bit and eyed the mug suspiciously. A gigantic crinkle appeared between his eyebrows, and maybe he flushed a bit. But just a bit.

The mug was awful. The worst of nightmares, provided that nightmares could be made of cheap porcelain. It was dark red with little white hearts and ‘ _best boyfriend in the world_ ’ written on it.

“This is terrible.” Sherlock glared at the mug as if it had personally offended him. “This is the most ridiculous attempt to standardise romantic declarations for capitalist exploitation I have ever seen.”

John giggled. “You still don’t get the hang of this romance thing, do you?”

“Don’t be daft, John. I fail to understand how Taiwanese low-quality porcelain and tasteless symbolism contribute to the success of a romantic relationship.” Sherlock reached for the mug and examined it more closely. His frown deepened. “And it’s ugly, John,” he announced petulantly and put it back down.

John did his best to look a bit insulted. “Are you trying to imply that I am not the best boyfriend in the world?”

The snort Sherlock produced was neither denial nor confirmation. Then he bit his lip and looked a bit sheepish. “This is not what I was trying to imply,” he said decidedly. His hands moved a bit upwards, as if he was about to reach for the mug again. He paused with both hands in mid-air and looked confused.

John chuckled some more, squeezed Sherlock’s shoulder, turned around and walked out of the store. (They had gathered their evidence, after all. John couldn’t just spend the entire day making Sherlock uncomfortable, no matter how entertaining it was.)

Sherlock followed four minutes later, hands in his coat pockets and still frowning. He didn’t say a word on their way home.

 

\---

 

Sherlock made coffee the next morning. That was unusual per se. He waited for John to sit down and open his newspaper, then handed him a mug with an actual potable substance in it. At that point, John should have sensed that something was a bit off. He was, however too tired, too thirsty and too coffee-starved for his brain to function properly, that's why he didn’t question Sherlock’s behaviour.

John grunted something that resembled _thank you,_ grabbed the mug, took a sip, read an article about an oil tanker on the Indian Ocean, and took another sip. Noticed that the mug was new. And red. With little white hearts.

_Best boyfriend in the world._

John inhaled his mouthful of coffee.

He then proceeded to cough his lungs out until Sherlock walked around the table and dutifully patted him on the back. When John had his breath back, he blinked up at him, raised the mug and bluntly stated the obvious: “You bought the bloody thing.”

“I did buy the bloody thing,” Sherlock confirmed.

“Interesting.” John grinned into what was left of his coffee.

Sherlock grumbled something, sat down and nibbled unenthusiastically at his toast with butter and jam. And then, he produced another coffee mug (out of thin air, really, like a goddamn magician, _how the hell did he do this?_ ) and started to drink. It was an identical coffee mug. Of course.

_Of fucking course._

Sherlock slurped his coffee with a perfectly neutral expression.

John squinted. “You bought _yourself_ a ‘best boyfriend in the world’ mug?”

Sherlock stared at him, looking completely and utterly innocent. “Of course I did,” he said matter-of-factly. “Logical consequence. I bought you a mug. Whenever I initiate any kind of display of affection, you feel the need to reciprocate. I bought another mug and spared you the trouble. So to speak.”

John felt like he was supposed to be angry, but experienced major difficulties in keeping a straight face. “We can’t both be the best boyfriend in the world. Superlative. There can’t be two of us.”

Sherlock stuck his nose in the air. “The misuse of superlatives is a disease of the modern age I decided to tolerate,” he said dramatically.

John processed this. “We could both be _very good boyfriends_.”

Sherlock nodded and seemed to be content with this. He finished eating his toast, put his mug aside, bent forward and peered at John over his newspaper. “We both _are_ very good boyfriends,” he said slowly and gave John his most suggestive crooked smile. “And very good boyfriends could do something _very good_ after breakfast. In the bedroom for example.”

This time, John actually burst out laughing. Sherlock looked vaguely offended.

“You know I would love to, Sherlock. But I’m already late for work.” John raised himself up a bit and pressed a dry kiss on Sherlock's lips. Over the newspaper.

“You could just be a little more late,” Sherlock suggested. “I slept tonight, we’re both well rested. We can be quick.” He gestured vaguely at the table. “And I bought the mugs and everything.”

“That’s why you bought the mugs?”

Sherlock mumbled something that sounded like “part of the plan”.

John sighed. “Sherlock, you bought two awful mugs for the sole purpose of having a shag after breakfast. S’not that easy.” He glanced at this watch and got up. “I really need to go to work.”

Sherlock looked thoroughly annoyed by now. And, as a side glance at his crotch confirmed, like he was going to have to deal with his morning wood alone. Trust Sherlock to have breakfast while ignoring a massive erection. _Dull_ , probably.

John paused on his way to the door. “I’m not mad or anything,” he said carefully, “but you’re a pillock. Drink your coffee and don’t store experiments above my macaroni.”

Sherlock grumbled and slumped back onto his chair. John simply shook his head and left, feeling strangely frustrated and maybe a tiny, _tiny_ bit guilty.

 

\---

 

When John returned from the surgery around seven hours later, he was greeted by a motionless, sulking lump on the sofa and a mug on the kitchen table that looked _different_. John picked it up and eyed it. The word “ _boyfriend”_ had been crossed out with a black marker pen. Scribbled over it was, in Sherlock’s messy handwriting, the word “ _idiot_ ”.

_Best idiot in the world._

For fuck’s sake. He should have expected that. John laughed and poured himself a cup of coffee.

The lump on the sofa was breathing softly, not softly enough to be asleep. John eyed it fondly until he noticed that his stomach was grumbling somewhat demandingly. Ah, yes. Worked through his lunch break again. John wandered over to the fridge, barely hoping to find his macaroni in an edible state, and was, of course, disappointed. Something that looked suspiciously like lymphoid tissue had been stored right above his plate (so precisely right above his plate that there was next to zero possibility that it had been accidental).

Lymphoid tissue or not, it was bloody. And it was _dripping_. Right onto _his fucking noodles_.

John sighed. He didn’t even bother shouting at Sherlock. Well, not much. (There was in fact a bit of “ _you’re such a giant arse, it’s like living with a child, can’t you even try to behave like an adult_ ” which was answered by an impressively loud grunt and a bit of stirring done by the lump. Pointless as always.) In the end, John tracked down the marker pen (in the fridge) and Sherlock’s mug (under the coffee table), crossed “ _boyfriend_ ” out and neatly replaced it with “ _arsehole_ ”. He eyed his work proudly.

And then he walked over to the sofa and sighed heavily, and crawled on top of Sherlock until Sherlock stopped ignoring him and undressed him instead. Then there was a lot of sighing and whispering and, admittedly, also wild rutting and animalistic noises. Afterwards, when they lay there, cuddled up (piled up) on their sofa, a bit sticky and very satisfied, neither of them was particularly grumpy about anything. And the goddamn mugs were the last thing on their mind.

 

\---

 

It wasn’t until they drank coffee out of their respective idiot/arsehole mugs the next morning and Sherlock sleepily scratched himself behind the ear with his toast that the ridiculous thought popped up again.

_Yes_ , John decided. He would really like to get married to this nutter. And, perhaps, mutilate a _best husband in the world_ mug. One day.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't able to update yesterday! Sorry. Here's a cute, shamelessly fluffy chapter! 
> 
> Happy OTP day to all of you, btw! <3


	5. Absolutely Nobody is Shot

V.

 

Sherlock had a habit of announcing things.

Sometimes he told John, “I’m going to kiss you,” or “I’m going to take your hand,” or “You’re going to make tea” (that last one was annoying, admittedly), and Sherlock announced those things with as much sincerity as a neurosurgeon announcing that _right now_ he was going to open the right parietal lobe. It was strangely endearing.

Sherlock also announced when he was going to fart in bed, which was very convenient, because it gave John time to flee along with the duvet. But that’s another story.

 

Right now, Sherlock was very sick and very dramatic. Dressed in a sweat-soaked T-shirt and hunched over a bucket, surrounded by an unearthly amount of filthy tissues, he had basically ascended to Drama Queen Heaven.

“John, you are going to go upstairs.” He made this announcement as theatrical as he could possibly manage and sniffled emphatically. “You’re going to go upstairs and fetch your gun.”

“Nah.” John didn’t look up from the British Medical Journal.

“I need you to fetch your gun,” Sherlock repeated, “and shoot me.” He tapped at his temple. “Right here.”

John sighed. “Are you done being sick?”

Sherlock frowned, sniffled some more and peered hard at his bucket. “Not sure,” he said slowly.

“Alright then.”

“I don’t want to live like this,” Sherlock complained, “I’m in pain. I’m snuffy. I’m sweating. I’m going to be sick in approximately forty-five seconds. Make it stop, John.”

“It’s a stomach bug, Sherlock. Bit of fever. Not the apocalypse. I’ll make you another cup of chamomile tea. With honey?”

“I don’t want chamomile tea, John. I want you to kill me.” Sherlock collapsed back onto his pillow and coughed a little. The duvet made undulating movements.

“I can’t kill you, Sherlock.”

“Why not?”

John pointed at his journal. “Because I’m reading about modern triage room equipment in European hospitals and it’s really interesting.”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched and his cheeks got a little rosier. He grumbled into his pillow.

“Have you taken your Vitamin C?” John turned a page in his journal and readjusted himself in his armchair in the corner.

Sherlock insinuated a shake of his head, then frowned, pressed his forefingers to his temples and squinted at John. Another jolt of headache, apparently.

John sighed. “The Vitamin C I brought you half an hour ago? Where is it?”

Sherlock looked confused.

“Fizzy stuff in a glass, Sherlock?”

“Mmh, yes. Drank that.”

“Brilliant.” John continued reading.

 

A minute later, Sherlock sneezed with devotion, grabbed a random tissue from Mount Tissue beside him and wiped his nose. Then he fixated John with his gaze. John raised his head a bit and watched him over his journal. Restless fingers toying with the duvet. Knitted brow. Petulant pout on his face. Getting profoundly irritated about the fact that he, in all his ailing glory, wasn’t the centre of John’s attention any longer. Sherlock was clearly plotting something. Like falling out of bed, for example. Or eating the nightstand.

John needed to interfere in advance. He cautiously laid his journal down. “Your forty-five seconds are long over, Sherlock. How’s your stomach?”

Sherlock raised his head, gave John a death glare, and, after a second, let himself fall back onto his pillow. “I miscalculated,” he announced and pointed at his bucket, “I might actually be done being sick.” John noted that he sounded almost annoyed. About the fact that he wasn’t going to throw up. Because Sherlock Holmes couldn’t handle being outwitted by his own transport.

John was about to start giggling and tried to come up with a witty, sarcastic remark, when exactly two seconds later Sherlock turned white as a sheet. Then green. Then he sat up abruptly, curled around his bucket and began to retch miserably.

Well.

John ruefully abandoned his armchair. He sat down on the bed beside Sherlock and stroked his back soothingly. Sherlock heaved pitifully and John brushed his curls back so they didn’t get in the way and grabbed another tissue (a clean one) to wipe the cold sweat off his brow.

“Kill me,” was Sherlock’s first vocalisation when he was done. “Shoot me, John.”

“The answer is still no,” John informed him drily and took hold of the bucket. “I’ll go clean this out, okay?”

“It’s not okay, John.” Sherlock collapsed back onto the mattress, pulled the duvet over his chin and rolled over until he was lying on his stomach, wrapped up like a big, petulant burrito. “Kill me. Just kill me and get it over with.”

John stopped on his way out and gave Sherlock a weak smile. “I won’t kill you, Sherlock. Not today. I spent the last forty-eight hours pampering you because you can’t deal with a bit of fever and an upset stomach. I don’t feel like getting rid of a body right now. Killing is messy.”

Sherlock snorted and curled his naked toes (that were sticking out of his duvet burrito). “Stop being an idiot, John. Last time I killed myself you didn’t have to clean anything. There are people who do that professionally.”

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? That what felt the three hundredth thoughtless remark still resembled getting hit in the lower abdomen. By a medium sized truck. John clenched his left hand. Unclenched it again. “God, Sherlock,” he sighed, “just...”

“I still want you to kill me,” Sherlock reminded him.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” John said very, very dangerously.

Sherlock gave him a cruel little smirk. “You’re so tiresome, John. Pity we haven’t talked to Mary in years. She would get it done in an instant.”

And that, then, was the point where John pretty much exploded. “Shut up,” he yelled, loud enough to make Sherlock visibly tense up in surprise. “Shut the bloody hell up, Sherlock, about killing and dying and shooting you, before I... before I...” _Before I what?_ “Before I fucking _lose_ it, Sherlock, I swear. I bloody pampered you for days and here I am, holding a bucket of vomit while you’re being completely insufferable and... apparently I can’t stop nursing you and your-- your _cruel arse_. Now get some sleep and quit acting like a three year-old for once. I wonder why I’m still here.”

John voice had inexplicable become louder and louder, he felt a vein on his neck swell and his heart beat faster than it should, and, hell, he was _so bloody furious._

Sherlock stirred under his duvet, rolled on his side so he was facing John and propped up on one elbow. “My cruel arse?” he repeated incredulously.

“Yes!” John shouted, “your cruel arse! Now go the fuck to sleep. I’m... going for a walk. I can’t stand that. You.”

John marched out, stomped into the bathroom, did what he had to do with the contents of the bucket and... and... didn’t scream like a banshee or ruin the furniture, which was a bit of an exercise in self-control, because he really felt like it.

He did unload his gun, though, before going out. Angrily.

 

\---

 

When John returned after an hour of aimless strolling around in a far too cold and icy London, his anger wasn’t gone, but it had definitely been tempered. Entering a warm flat and smelling Mrs Hudson’s freshly baked biscuits from downstairs significantly helped.

Sherlock had left his bed and successfully changed his location to the sofa. He looked much better than before, sprawled out on his back in his oversized pyjamas, naked toes curled and a frown on his face. He had actually regained a little bit of colour.

John cleared his throat. Sherlock turned his head in slow motion and peered up at him.

“How about tea now?” John asked.

“Uh.” Sherlock cautiously laid a hand on his belly, patted it lightly and frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Yet.”

John sat down on the sofa beside Sherlock’s legs, ran a hand up his calf and let it rest on one bony knee. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Are you feeling better?”

“A bit.”

“Good.”

It was silent for a few achingly long minutes. John rubbed the side of Sherlock’s knee through his pyjama trousers. Sherlock closed his eyes and took several deep, steady breaths. He wriggled a bit, nuzzled his nose into one of the sofa cushions, hummed contentedly and fell silent again. John wondered if he was actually falling asleep. Getting a sick Sherlock to sleep was about as easy as calming down a colony of enraged hornets. John would have been really bloody pleased about a well-rested Sherlock, for a change.

“You usually like taking care of me,” Sherlock determined, all of a sudden, his voice somewhat muffled by the sofa cushion, “because you’re a doctor.”

Alright, not asleep then. John sighed. “I like taking care of you because I love you and I want you to feel well.”

Sherlock responded to that with a delay of about ten seconds, keeping his eyes firmly closed. “Oh.”

John slowly let his hand travel up Sherlock’s thigh. He let it rest on his hip for a minute, brushing his thumb over the outline of a hipbone through the thin cotton shirt, toyed with the hem of said shirt for a bit and finally let his hand slip under it. He gently, cautiously, smoothed his hand over the concave of Sherlock’s belly, traced his costal arch with his thumb, felt his sparse chest hair under his finger tips. Then he let his hand settle over Sherlock’s stomach and rubbed gently.

Sherlock cracked one eye open and frowned. “What are you doing, John?”

“Rubbing your belly.”

“Why?”

“To soothe your stomach a bit. Should I stop?”

“No,” Sherlock said determinedly. He seemed to contemplate the situation. “It feels... good. Could actually help.”

John smiled at him. “Thought so.”

Sherlock cautiously smiled back. “I’m sorry, John,” he offered hesitantly.

John clenched his jaw and glared at the floor.

“I didn’t actually want you to kill me,” Sherlock continued, “and you know that. I was just being...”

“A bloody drama queen?” John suggested.

Sherlock grumbled, but didn’t react otherwise.

“You know,” John said thoughtfully and stopped rubbing, let his hand slowly wander up Sherlock’s belly and over his chest instead until it rested on his left collar bone, “you make me go through so much. You’re just such a... such an _inconsiderate_ person. And after everything you’ve done to me, after every cruelty and every idiotic remark you’ve made, I still...” John paused, licked his lips, gazed into Sherlock’s eyes, just for a second. “I’d never leave, Sherlock. I’d never... because I couldn’t.”

“I know that,” Sherlock blurted out, his eyes suddenly wide, "neither of us... It’s clear, I mean... yes. That.”

You could never be sure with Sherlock, but John was around eighty per cent certain that that meant “ _I feel the same about you, John, I could never leave you_.” He decided that that was good enough for now.

 

God, there it was again. _I want to marry him_ , John thought desperately. _I want him to say yes, I want to stand opposite him, take his hand and hear him say it. I want him... I want this idiot forever._

You can’t propose on a sofa. You can’t propose to someone who's running a nasty fever, especially if said someone doesn't even want to marry you back. This was a mess.

John frowned thoughtfully. “I mean, it’s... pretty good, isn’t it?” he finally murmured. He could feel Sherlock’s pulse throb under the warm skin right over his collar bone. “The two of us. What we’re having now... I’d never give it up. Because I’ve honestly never been happier in my life. I want it to stay this way. It’s like we’re...”

John cut himself off, cleared his throat. Like we’re what?

_Already married_ , that annoying voice in John’s head practically screamed. _It’s like you’re already married. You promised yourself to him years ago. You’re destined to be together until one of you bloody dies, anyway. So why don’t you just ask him? ‘We’re already married, you pretentious cock, care to make it official?’_

“It’s like we’re what, John?” Sherlock demanded, jolting John out of his strange little day dream.

“Like we’re... very okay like this,” John said and smiled. And Sherlock smiled back, reached for John and pulled him down so they were chest to chest and Sherlock’s face was buried in the crook of John’s neck and John was probably going to catch the damn stomach bug like that, but it didn’t really matter.

 


	6. The Most Brilliant Sunday

 

+I _  
_

 

                                            

The most brilliant Sunday of John Watson’s life began... like an already pretty brilliant Sunday, to be honest. Especially since Sherlock had let John sleep through the night (which was a rare occurrence, for several reasons). In this case it had meant that Sherlock simply hadn’t deemed it worthy to come to bed, which was fairly common and not as unpleasant/disappointing as one might think. John was very used to this.

On what was going to become the most brilliant Sunday of his life, John shuffled into the kitchen at eight o’clock, located Sherlock, determined Sherlock was both present and alive (on the sofa), and put the kettle on. This was indeed a good morning. John hummed under his breath.

He fetched bacon, tomatoes and four eggs that weren’t labelled _Salmonella Culture_ from the fridge, unceremoniously mashed everything in a pan and switched on the stove.

Sherlock didn’t move, stretched out on the sofa as he was, dressing gown pooling around him, every muscle clearly visible through his worn-out tee shirt. He was staring at the ceiling with his hands clasped under his chin, not making a sound, and there was a distinct possibility that he was convinced he was alone in the room.

John made sure to crash around effectively while frying their eggs. He shoved the mess on the kitchen table aside, cautiously relocated one very alarming looking test tube and laid the breakfast table.

“I made breakfast,” he informed Sherlock when everything was prepared, in case Sherlock really hadn’t noticed.

Sherlock sat up and ran both hands through his curls. “I am aware,” he said. John was a little surprised by this.

Sherlock wandered over to the table, took a seat and peered at his plate. John served them both directly from the pan, positioned two slices of bread in front of Sherlock and ruffled his hair affectionately, to which Sherlock reacted by making an odd, deep rumbling sound that resembled... purring. Christ. John really shouldn’t be surprised by stuff like this at that point.

“You were awake all night, huh? Anything new?”

Sherlock continued to eye his scrambled eggs. “Hmmm,” he said and picked up his fork. “Solved the Abbott case around midnight. Sister poisoned her. Had an affair with Lauren Abbott’s husband and thought she could coax him into marrying her by killing her own sister. He was never actually interested in her, though. Actually quite simple. Should have figured it out when we questioned her. No one except her had a yellow vacuum cleaner. We’ll need to break into her flat and find the left-over Botulinum toxine. I also started on the guest list. Take a look.” He gestured vaguely at something to his left.

John sat down opposite him, took a sip of his tea, processed what Sherlock had said (because it was still quite early for a Sunday morning and he hadn’t got the faintest idea what a yellow vacuum cleaner had to do with Botulinum toxine). Then he got stuck at the last part of Sherlock’s little monologue. He frowned.

“What guest list?”

Sherlock was peering at his fork now and with one hand blindly dug in the pile of paper and indefinable stuff John had shoved aside. He rummaged around a bit, sent half of the pile flying, ignored John’s annoyed grunting and finally handed him a page that looked like it had been ripped out of his lab journal. John blinked the rest of his sleepiness out of his eyes and squinted at it. There were three names written on it, in Sherlock’s messy handwriting.

 

_Mrs Hudson_

_Molly_

_Graham_

 

John raised both eyebrows and stared at Sherlock expectantly. There had to be an explanation for this, right?

Sherlock’s eggs and his fork were taking turns being stared at. This amount of interest in food and tableware was highly unusual, even for Sherlock. (And, let’s face it, the man could occupy himself with a shrivelled cucumber and a magnifying glass for three hours if he was so inclined.) Sherlock was very deliberately not looking at John, for some odd reason. Something was a bit wrong here.

“What the hell is this?” John asked, pointing at the piece of paper.

“A guest list, John,” Sherlock repeated, very slowly, as if he was talking to a particularly dim-witted child.

“What for?”

“Wedding.”

John was slowly getting impatient. “Whose wedding?” he demanded, a tad louder.

Sherlock still seemed extremely interested in his fork. His bloody breakfast. The table. Everything except John. “ _Our_ wedding,” he said in a deliberately casual tone and glanced up at John for just a fraction of a second.

John experienced something akin to a short-term circulatory arrest. “What?” he barked out.

Sherlock was gracious enough to really look at John, at last. His eyes were wide, his expression guarded, like he was careful to look as composed as possible – _was his hand trembling?_

“We’re getting married,” Sherlock explained, suddenly not looking quite so sure of himself. John supposed that he wasn’t getting the reaction he had expected.

“Come on, John,” Sherlock said, in an _Oh-for-God’s-sakes_ sort of voice, “don’t act like you weren’t going to ask me anyway.”

“What?”

“You were going to ask me to marry you, John. Now there’s no need anymore. Consider it done.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you,” John said decidedly. He cleared his throat. “I mean, I didn’t plan-- Sherlock, you... You can’t just decide you’re going to marry someone.”

“Yes I can,” Sherlock contradicted, eyes suddenly wide, an expression of... something not unlike worry slowly spreading across his face. “All the signs were there, you wanted to propose to me. It was... it was obvious.”

John squeezed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose. “What signs?”

Sherlock was most definitely prepared for this question. He took a deep breath. “Quite obvious, took me only a few days to figure it out. It started after that case with the anthrax bombs. Most likely during the night after. Maybe just a spontaneous idea. Maybe I said or did something in a state of semi-consciousness that elicited it. You began to act differently in the presence of married couples. You glanced at a lot of wedding rings. And at empty ring fingers as well, most often mine. It got worse after the Blakely case. That time you were watching that news report about marriage equality, your breath hitched when the narrator referred to a couple as “newly-wed husbands” and you stared at me for over seven seconds while I was sorting my Tibetan yak leather samples. You thought I wasn’t listening to the report. That one time we fucked in the living room – you had to restrain yourself from simply asking me to marry you afterwards, and when I was sick two weeks ago, you...” Sherlock swallowed. He peered at John, looking somewhat exasperated, his fingers thrumming nervously at the edge of the table. “You said you’d never been happier than with -- with me, so I thought...”

John shook his head slowly, felt something like a hesitant smile spread over his face. “You’re... unbelievable,” he said. “And you’re... you’re right. I thought about it.”

John hadn’t seen Sherlock look so relieved in a long time. Or ever, probably.

“But what about you?” John continued tentatively, “Do you actually want to—“

“Yes,” Sherlock cut him off, nodding eagerly.

“But,” John started, his mouth awfully dry all of a sudden. “But why? Why... why do _you_ want to get married?”

Sherlock gave him a very long, very odd look. Then he shrugged. “Because I love you,” he said neutrally and, without further warning, dug into his semi-cold scrambled eggs with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.

John blinked. It couldn’t be as simple as that, could it?

It absolutely couldn’t. Not with Sherlock being Sherlock Holmes and everything.

Sherlock didn’t simply tell John he loved him. Not on a regular basis. Well, of course he had told him, namely precisely twice during the last two years. Once on the day they had gotten together, seconds before their first kiss. A second time after John had been stabbed in the back and was losing a lot of blood. And now, the third time, it was because they were more or less engaged and Sherlock had made a guest list for their wedding.

John spent over a minute pondering over this, during which Sherlock devoured his eggs and bread in record time and poured down not only his own coffee but also John’s. Then John did what he considered an appropriate reaction to the goings-on: He laughed. So hard that he had tears in his eyes by the time Sherlock looked up and eyed him suspiciously, mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“You’re... you’re such an idiot,” John gasped out. “You deduce I kind of want to propose to you, decide to marry me and... and break the news to me by scribbling three names on a piece of paper and calling it a guest list. That’s—Sherlock, that is so _you_.”

Sherlock frowned. “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” John told him exasperatedly, still giggling, “but who cares? Nothing’s ever good or bad with you, everything’s just insane!”

Sherlock frowned at that for a second, then got up, deposited his empty plate in the sink, leaned against the counter and crossed his arms in front of his chest. John pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. (This was probably the first time Sherlock had eaten his breakfast while John hadn’t.)

John got up slowly, stood in front of Sherlock, not touching him. “So,” he said quietly, feeling his cheeks flush, “Are you sure you want this? Getting married?”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes to slits. “Please, John, I already said...”

“Yes, you already said. It’s just... I bloody know you. And your opinions. I thought you hated the entire concept. Christ, Sherlock, ever since I met you, you have rejected all of... this. I would never have expected you to get married. Voluntarily.” John swallowed, glanced down at his toes. “And I really don’t want you to do this just because you think I expect you to.”

Sherlock opened his mouth, closed it again, apparently at a loss of words. “I feel fiercely possessive of you,” he blurted out with a faint air of exasperation in his voice.

That, then, was the second time John was completely dumbfounded this morning. “What?”

Sherlock bit his bottom lip, somewhat nervously. “I can’t stand thinking about you being... around people who don’t know you’re... taken. I am stupidly jealous of almost everyone near you, predominantly women who are sexually or romantically interested in you. I want people to recognise you as _mine_ , I want there to be absolutely no doubt that you belong to me and...” He made a non-committal hand motion, “and I to you, yes, that too. Marriage is most probably the easiest way to achieve that.” He paused, clenched his hand into a fist. “John. I have the oddest sensations when I’m close to you, and for some reason, I am not inclined to give any of this up. Ever.”

John stared at him. He wondered if he actually needed to listen to Sherlock’s twisted interpretation of love to understand what was going on, or if he just _wanted to hear it._ “The oddest sensations?” he asked cautiously.

Sherlock exhaled heavily. “I... I look at you and I want to crawl under your skin, I want to feel the rush of your blood, I want to feel your heartbeat, I constantly want to touch you, be close to you. And I shouldn’t want this so much because it’s so... so _hatefully illogical_ , but I still do. So much. I am not scared of... of loving you, John.” He paused again, ran both hands through his curls, frowning as if he was trying to figure out what to do, as if he was completely clueless— “I would rather die than be without you for one single day,” Sherlock continued, finally, “nothing _makes sense_ without you. And one day I will be old and incapable of doing my work, and I’ll still be obnoxious and annoying and it still won’t bother you, and you’ll still be an idiot and it still won’t bother me. And whatever happens in between, I want you to stay with me. I want you to have tea with me and sit in a chair opposite mine in front of a fireplace, and I want you to kiss me and tell me you love me. Because if something as ridiculous as _fate_ would actually exist, you would be mine.”

John had finally, effectively been rendered completely incapable of speaking. He struggled to breathe somewhat steadily.

His chest was burning and his hands were sweating, and he hadn’t felt so desperately, _helplessly_ in love with anyone his entire life, which was not exactly news, because... it had probably always been like that. Right from the first moment. Right from the “here, use mine” and the “that was amazing” and the “because you’re an idiot”. And what Sherlock had just said was... well, he wasn’t sure if it was anything except _absolutely incredible_.

“Marriage, you see,” Sherlock concluded after a long pause, surprisingly calmly, “I’m quite fond of the idea, myself.”

 

John surged forward and kissed him.

Sherlock stiffened briefly and made a muffled sound of surprise, then practically slumped against John, kissing back eagerly.

“You,” John breathed against his lips, “are the most incredible person I have ever met.” He moved closer, enfolded Sherlock in his arms, let his hands wander from the small of Sherlock’s back up to his shoulder blades. He idly traced the sharp outline of bone beneath skin before leaning in to kiss him again. “And I’ll be damned if I ever do as much as _think_ about giving this up.”

Their kisses deepened slowly. John raised a hand to cup Sherlock’s jaw and parted Sherlock’s lips, let his tongue slip between them. Sherlock finally locked his arms around John’s waist, allowed him to press their bodies together as firmly as possible, letting the lazy slide of tongues and lips continue until John’s head was spinning and he felt his lips become swollen under the delicious pressure.

The prickling desire, the need, the urgency, built slowly between them. They had time, so much time.

They had the entire day, John reminded himself as he let his finger tips glide along Sherlock’s sides, gripped his hips, kissed him harder. It was only morning. It was only the beginning of the rest of their lives. They had each other to explore and love and worship, and neither of them would let go.

They both hadn’t shaved yet, and Sherlock’s stubble prickled on John’s skin. A slight flush was beginning to spread across Sherlock’s neck, his clavicles. John kissed a trail along his jaw, down his neck, let his lips brush the pulse point.

“John,” Sherlock mouthed breathlessly, as John’s hands followed first the outline of his trapezius, then the curve of his lower back and finally settled on his hips.

John hummed appreciatively. “Mmmh, bed, I think?”

Sherlock wiggled in his embrace, attempting to slot their hips together once more to increase pressure until he was practically rubbing himself against John. He was already getting hard, John noticed. Always so eager. He smiled and kissed Sherlock’s blushing cheek before taking his hand and pulling him towards their bedroom.

John stopped to snog Sherlock thoroughly in the doorway, which was always an effective way to get John hard and practically gagging for it. – It felt brilliant, _sultry_ , to have Sherlock pressed up against the doorframe right there, gasping in John’s arms, trembling fingers all over John’s body, kissing him impatiently, almost with something like desperation. It did help that Sherlock was a fantastic kisser, actually. And John wasn’t so bad himself. They both knew how to draw it out, how to make the lazy slide of lips and tongues entirely too decadent and filthy to be taking place anywhere outside their bed. John pulled away after long minutes, shrugging off his own dressing gown before moving on to Sherlock’s. He pushed it off his shoulders, then let his hands slip under his tee shirt. Sherlock made a noise that sounded almost startled, then lifted his arms to help John tug his tee shirt off.

John walked towards the bed (because they had to get there sooner or later). He pulled Sherlock with him, already pushing his pyjama trousers down along with his pants. Sherlock helped eagerly and nearly tripped as he stepped out of his trousers, pants still hanging awkwardly around his ankles. His cock was fully erect, foreskin retracted, inelegantly bobbing up and down in front of him. John grabbed his shoulders, pulled him down for another kiss, then gently urged him to lie down. Sherlock let himself fall onto the bed, pulled his knees up and blinked up at John, eyes sparkling, lips swollen and wet. John simply stopped, smiled and remained motionless for a few long moments. Just stared at Sherlock. His gorgeous partner. The man he respected like his commander, protected as a friend and touched like the gentlest of lovers.

His fiancé.

This was pure madness. John had never been happier.

Sherlock then noticed that John was still wearing clothes and felt the need to point it out.

“I’m naked, John. You’re not,” he announced, trying to make it sound accusing and failing.

John chuckled and did his best to rectify the situation. He got out of his trousers in record time, pulled his tee shirt over his head, smirked at Sherlock who blinked up at him, biting his lip, and then... John stumbled over his own pants, struggled, fell —and landed on top of Sherlock, which came in pretty handy.

Sherlock gasped in surprise, then chuckled (but just very briefly because he was busy wrapping himself around John).

“Come here,” he said very sincerely and kissed the top of John’s head. In return, John pressed a kiss right above Sherlock’s left nipple (which was where his face had ended up) and slid one knee between Sherlock’s legs, urging him to spread them for him. Sherlock hummed appreciatively and loosened his grip around John’s waist so John could wriggle down his body and settle between his legs.

John let his hand glide up his thigh and rest lightly where his pubic hair started. Sherlock’s skin was already moist and flushed. He could feel the pulse in his arteria femoralis, right where his musculus adductor longus met the fascia trunci under that smooth, pale skin. Then he leaned forward, kissing a trail from Sherlock's belly button to his right hip bone. Sherlock closed his eyes and sighed.

“What do you want, love?” John asked, smiling up at him.

Sherlock watched him through his lashes, eyes half closed. “Mmmh,” he murmured, “your mouth.” He actually managed to make it sound impatient and demanding, althought his voice was becoming slightly shaky.

John smirked. He closed his fist around Sherlock’s cock, gave it two light strokes. Sherlock reacted with a soft groan and tilted his head back on his pillow. “Please,” he whispered. And there went the commanding tone. John had him almost where he wanted him.

John decided that this wasn’t the time for teasing. Or drawing it out. They could do that later. He gave Sherlock’s cock another stroke, traced the vein on the underside with his thumb, then he lowered his head and took him into his mouth.

Sherlock gasped softly. John breathed in deeply, allowed himself to feel the soft, plump weight between his lips, let the head of Sherlock’s cock rest there for a second before swirling his tongue around the tip. He let his hand glide up Sherlock’s thigh as he started to suck softly, which coaxed another appreciative, rumbly noise from Sherlock. He was lying there, motionlessly on his back and let John pleasure him while practically purring with enjoyment. It was so very Sherlock that John could very nearly have chuckled about it had his mouth been a bit less busy.

John’s hand slowly wandered from Sherlock’s thigh to his testicles. He rolled them in his hand, fondled them gently, just for a moment, before letting his hand glide farther. He stroked Sherlock’s perineum to which Sherlock reacted with another deep, throaty groan. When his finger finally rested against Sherlock’s hole, John simultaneously took him deeper into his mouth and increased the pressure on the tip with his tongue.

“Oh,” Sherlock groaned, “fuck.”

Well, John was getting pretty damn good at this.

“Fuck,” Sherlock repeated when John began to tap gently against his entrance. John could already feel the tight ring of muscle twitch as Sherlock tried to relax for him.

He raised his head a bit to peer up at Sherlock, his cock slipping from his mouth with a wet pop noise. “Alright?” he asked, pressing his finger a bit firmer against Sherlock’s hole until the muscle gave and he slipped inside to the first knuckle.

“Don’t stop” Sherlock ordered.

John did stop. “Lube,” he said, “will make this a thousand times better, you know.”

Sherlock reached out to his nightstand with one hand without changing his position, opened the drawer and began to rummage around blindly. A second later a bottle of lube hit John’s head.

“Ouch,” John said, “you weren’t supposed to attack me with it.

Sherlock grunted. “Hurry up.”

John shook his head and decided not to comment on that. He slicked up his fingers and placed his hand where it had been before, namely between Sherlock’s buttocks.

He slowly, gently circled the rim of Sherlock’s already partly relaxed hole before pushing his slick finger back inside. Sherlock tensed up briefly, then hummed softly and let John move his finger in and out of his body, spreading him. Sherlock became impatient, of course. By the time John added a second finger, he was practically whimpering, pressing down onto John’s hand, trying to pull him in deeper.

John, however, was already in deep enough to find what he was looking for. He waited for the right moment to press his finger against Sherlock's prostate for the first time. Sherlock _mewled_.

“Alright, that’s the spot?” John whispered, satisfied, rubbing slightly. Sherlock made a breathless noise and his cock twitched upward. John pressed a kiss to its tip before wrapping his lips around it once more.

“Mmmh, ungh, ahhhm,” Sherlock mumbled and curled his toes. (He seemed pretty inarticulate all of a sudden, which indicated that, yes, that was indeed the spot.)

John wrapped his hand around the base of Sherlock’s cock, took him as deep in his mouth as he could and began to move properly, his head bobbing up and down, his thumb pressing against the sensitive skin on the underside. He let the pressure increase with every move of his head, every pump of his fist, and Sherlock began to tremble under him.

“Oh God,” Sherlock whispered, “John, oh-- _Fuck_.”

Hands appeared in John’s hair, holding his head in place, finger tips digging almost uncomfortably into his scalp. Nearly there, then. John knew the signs by now. He glanced up through his lashes and observed Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock raised his head a bit and peered down at John, eyes wide and sparkling, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back. John moved his fingers gently in and out a few more times, then pressed them hard against Sherlock’s prostate.

Sherlock’s head snapped up. “John, I’m coming,” he announced, sounding almost startled by the suddenness of it all.

John reacted by sucking harder, let his fingers move in circles inside Sherlock’s body and pressed his fingertips into the soft skin over his hip bone. He could taste salty precome, saw Sherlock’s testicles tense up.

“Uh,” Sherlock said drowsily, “John, God, I –“

The first drops of hot liquid spilt over John’s tongue barely five seconds later. John pulled him in impossibly deeper and swallowed around him.

“I’m coming,” Sherlock repeated, as if it wasn’t completely obvious. And _how_ he was coming. His hips bucked up and John reflexively pinned them down with his free arm, sucking harder. John could feel Sherlock’s cock twitch in his mouth as he came down his throat.

“Oh God,” Sherlock gasped, his body tense as a bowstring, a string of little huffy noises escaping his throat as his release spilt over John’s tongue, one spurt of liquid after another. John kept sucking lightly, holding Sherlock’s hips firmly in place as he rode out the aftershocks of his orgasm.

“Fuck,” Sherlock said emphatically when he was done. This was apparently the only comment he was currently capable of. John let his softening cock slip out of his mouth. Sherlock winced and wriggled slightly, his over-sensitive cock giving one last twitch before it lay still and soft against his belly.

“Mmmmmh,” Sherlock hummed and pulled John up to kiss him. Sherlock slipped his tongue into John’s mouth, lazily sucking at John’s. He was tasting himself. Brilliant.

John’s own cock had been half-erect throughout the proceedings and was now very enthusiastically informing him of its interest. He let it rest against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock’s post-orgasmic laziness vanished quite rapidly and he eagerly pushed his tongue into John’s mouth, sucked his bottom lip, hummed appreciatively as John began to move against him. John started out with small movements against Sherlock’s thigh, exhaled heavily as his cock brushed the soft skin on the inside of Sherlock’s thighs right where his pubic hair began.

“You’re so beautiful,” John panted against Sherlock’s mouth as he gently rolled his hips, “incredibly – beautiful.”

Sherlock wrapped his arms around John’s waist and held him close, began to meet his thrusts with gentle upward movements, his now flaccid penis warm and soft against John’s as John rocked slowly.

It was over almost embarrassingly fast. John rutted against Sherlock, faster and faster, sliding against slick, warm flesh, and, oh God, simply _rubbing_ himself against Sherlock really wasn’t supposed to be this stupidly hot.

The muscles in John’s belly tensed. He threw his head back and groaned as he came in thick stripes all over Sherlock’s belly, his thighs, his soft penis, his semen mingling with Sherlock’s own drying come.

John let his head fall onto Sherlock’s chest, let himself be held as he shuddered through it.

 

They rearranged positions after a while. John ended up halfway underneath Sherlock, whose face was buried in his neck, arms possessively around his waist, legs intertwined.

It was very silent. Sherlock mumbled something into the crook of John’s neck and bumped his nose against John’s Adam’s apple. John didn’t bother trying to understand what he was saying, but it sounded like a confession of some sort, and John was getting married to this man. As soon as possible, he noted to himself, because all of a sudden it felt utterly illogical not to be married to him.

 

\---

 

“You haven’t said yes yet,” Sherlock remarked after a long period of time that was entirely filled with soft breaths and hums, lazily stroking John’s shin with his foot.

John chuckled. “You do realise you never actually asked?”

Sherlock propped up on one elbow, leaned over and planted a kiss on John’s lips. “John,” he said solemnly, “will you marry me?”

“Yes,” John answered and grinned goofily at him, watching a matching smile spread across Sherlock’s face. “We'll need to work on that guest list of yours, though.”

A crinkle appeared between Sherlock’s eyebrows. “What’s wrong with my guest list?”

“There are three people on it. Three people? Just Mrs Hudson, Molly and Greg?”

“Graham,” Sherlock corrected him absentmindedly, wriggling under the duvet. “Those are the important ones.”

“What about your parents, Sherlock?”

“My parents are annoying. Mummy would cry the entire time, Mummy always cries at weddings. Dad cries when Mummy cries, so they would both cry.” Sherlock gazed at John expectantly, undoubtedly thinking he’d made a point convincing enough for John not to invite them.

“We’re inviting them, and they can cry as much as they want,” John determined.

Sherlock sighed dramatically. “Fine.”

“Stamford,” John continued thoughtfully, “We’ll have to invite Mike Stamford. And probably buy him a flower bouquet or something.” (Sherlock didn’t even protest, which was a bit of a victory.) John braced himself for what was about to come next. “Mycroft,” he said.

Sherlock scooted away from him with the sound of a tortured animal, crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared as if John had attacked him with a sharp instrument. “No,” he bit out and clenched his jaw, “over my dead body.”

“I suppose it won’t matter if we actually send him an invitation. He’ll show up anyway, won’t he?”

Sherlock snuggled closer again and grunted petulantly. “Stop talking about Mycroft, John. Come here and fuck me instead.”

“Already?”

“Yes.” Sherlock nuzzled John’s ear playfully, pressed a kiss right behind it. “I am aware that I have a remarkably short refractory period for a man close to – _ah_ – forty, but I’m sure you can keep up.”

“You’re forty-one, you git,” John told him.

Sherlock frowned. “Am I?”

“Yeah. This deleting your birthday thing is annoying, you know? I know you did when you discovered that single grey hair in the mirror last month, but I thought you might be over that by now.”

“I do not have grey hair.”

“Just one, darling.” John kissed Sherlock’s temple, right were the traitorous grey hair had been. “You nipped it in the bud. And are you sure you want me like that today? We could do it the other way round. You haven’t topped in ages, huh?”

Sherlock responded to that by snuggling even closer and grumbling impatiently.

“Lazy git,” John said tenderly and, with a firm hand on Sherlock’s hip, urged him to roll over so they were both on their sides. “Always make me do all the work.”

Sherlock grunted contentedly as John moved to spoon him properly, guiding one hand down to Sherlock’s arse. He let his hand glide into the cleft, heard Sherlock’s breath hitch as he reached his entrance. Sherlock was still slick and open from before, almost relaxed enough to take John right away, which made John’s cock give an interested twitch. John wasn’t going to rush this.

He reached for the lube, slicked his fingers once more, settled back behind Sherlock. “Let’s get you properly ready for me, huh?”

He leisurely stroked the ring of muscle from the outside, felt it loosen even more under his steady fingers. Sherlock moaned softly, arched back against John’s hand. John kissed his neck, his shoulder blades, first right then left, let his lips rest against his spine.

“You’re still not fucking me, John,” Sherlock complained, “Come here. Need you.”

“You sure do, love,” John murmured against flushed, sweaty skin, and slowly eased two fingers at once into Sherlock’s body. Sherlock stiffened briefly, tensed around him, then relaxed with a drawn-out, contented groan.

“More,” he ordered.

John drew out and pushed three fingers back in, marvelling at how perfectly it all fit, how Sherlock’s body stretched and trembled around him. Sherlock just pressed back against him, making breathy noises of satisfaction.

“You ready?” John asked softly.

“Mmmh. ‘Course. Hurry up.”

John reached for the lube once more, slicked himself up, kissed a trail up Sherlock’s back, let the hair on his nape tickle his nose. Then he lined himself up, gently guided his cock between Sherlock’s arse cheeks until the head rested against Sherlock’s relaxed entrance. He slowly pushed, felt his cock breach the ring of muscle easily. He gave Sherlock half a minute to adjust, and then Sherlock met his first gentle thrust with a lazy roll of his hips.

Second rounds weren’t exactly common for them. They were both – hell, they were both over forty. At some point, as John had to admit, you were too old to shag your way through entire afternoons. (Well, theoretically. They still managed, sometimes.)

The urgency, the desperate need that usually came with sex was completely gone by now. All that was left was an unbearable desire to be close to one another. As close as humanly possible. It was lazy and gentle, and it lasted surprisingly long. They didn’t talk much during. They didn’t even make much noise. John rolled his hips and stroked along Sherlock’s sides, ran his hands over his belly and chest, felt the smooth, pale skin become moist and flushed with desire once more.

The first minutes passed like that, lazy and decadent. John continued to thrust slowly, listened to Sherlock’s heavy, rhythmic breathing, watched the muscles on Sherlock’s back flinch with every movement he made. He buried his face in the back of Sherlock’s neck, let soft curls tickle his nose and closed his eyes, breathing him in.

“You’re perfect,” he heard himself whisper, “absolutely perfect.”

Sherlock hummed in response to this, reached back and placed his hand on John’s arse. John chuckled into the back of his neck. Sherlock _squeezed_. _Oh_. Alright.

The heat in John’s lower belly was pooling again. He sped up, almost involuntarily at first, then very deliberately. Sherlock met his thrusts eagerly, letting out a soft gasps and delicious breathy noises. John planted kisses on every patch of skin he could reach. Neck. Shoulder blades. The two big freckles right above the _processus_ _spinosus_ of his fifth cervical vertebra. John let his lips glide over that beautiful body that was his – _his_ – for the rest of their lives, let his tongue dart out and taste sweat and musk and _Sherlock_.

“Oh, _oh_ ,” Sherlock gasped, as if he was realising something over and over, as if this was a moment of absolute clarity for him, and then he grabbed John’s hand and unceremoniously placed it on his own hot, leaking cock.

“Perfect,” John whispered again as he closed his fist and let Sherlock thrust into it.

Sherlock’s body tensed up again, muscles hardening and his thighs trembling as he pressed back against John. The room was now silent save for their increasingly ragged breathing, the rhythmic sound of slick flesh against flesh and the quiet creaking of bed springs. John intertwined their fingers and Sherlock turned his head so John could kiss him.

John began to move his hand over Sherlock’s cock in time with his thrusts. Sherlock breathed softly into his mouth, their lips parted as they panted into each other. Sherlock got increasingly desperate for friction on his cock, seemingly torn between thrusting harder into John’s hand and pressing back to pull John deeper into him.

“John,” he whispered between kisses, softly and brokenly, and John couldn’t do anything but whisper Sherlock’s name right back, like a promise, like a warm prayer between their lips.

John’s second orgasm overtook him faster than he would have expected. It was less intense than the first, but it lasted much longer. Sherlock gasped as John found his release inside him, thrusting deep and steadily as he rode out the waves of his climax. Then Sherlock tensed up, clenched briefly, made a long, breathy, satisfied noise and came over John’s hand.

John gently stroked him through it until his cock softened in his hand, Sherlock’s muscles slackened and he lay soft and pliant in John’s arms.

John thought that he could easily stay like this forever, with Sherlock motionless and warm in his embrace. Safe, protected, sated. And sticky with lube and several bodily fluids, which was rapidly becoming a bit uncomfortable.

 

“God, we’re filthy.” John chuckled, letting his lube slick hand rest on Sherlock’s belly that was indeed covered in partly dried semen. “Look at us. We’re a mess. We need a shower.”

“I’m not having a shower,” Sherlock informed him drowsily.

“Why not?”

“Tired, John.”

John sighed. “Yeah, love, but we should really clean you up a bit.”

“I haven’t slept tonight,” Sherlock reminded him. “I’m exhausted and—“ he raised one eyebrow, “terribly, terribly shagged out, John. I’ll stay in bed.”

John chuckled softly and reached out to brush a strand of sweaty hair away from his forehead. “Exhausted and shagged out, that’s what you look like, actually.”

Sherlock took his hand, intertwined their fingers and rolled onto his side. Then he studied John’s fingers with great interest. “We should buy a ring,” he declared, “but since you wanted to propose first and I was the one who technically did it, I’m not sure who of us will wear it.”

“Forget about it,” John murmured “we’ll have wedding rings very soon, won’t we?”

Sherlock contemplated this and seemed very satisfied. “Both of us,” he said.

“Both of us.”

Sherlock rolled over again, pressed himself against John, wiggling his bum closer into the curve of his body. “Stay with me till I’m asleep?” he demanded tentatively, sounding almost shy, and squeezed John’s hand as if he was actually scared of John leaving.

What a great bloody actor he was. John smiled fondly.

“I’ll get you a flannel, sweetheart,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, “and then I’ll come back.”

Sherlock nuzzled sleepily into his pillow. He looked so young, so open, so real and _touchable_ that John’s breath hitched at the mere sight of him. Sherlock needed to understand, right now, that no matter how many rings they bought, no matter how and when they got married, no matter how long they’d live the life they were living now, John would always be here. Sherlock needed to be absolutely sure, with no room for doubt, that John wasn’t going anywhere.

“Once I’m back, I’ll stay,” he told him very sincerely, voice barely a whisper (and yes, it did occur to him that being melodramatic about fetching a damp flannel from the bathroom was actually more Sherlock’s style than his, but it didn’t matter), “once I’m back, I’ll bloody stay forever.”

And Sherlock blinked up at him, messy curls and swollen lips and everything, stretching lazily and smiling hesitantly, and John knew that of all the promises he’d ever made, this one would be the easiest to hold. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is!  
> I'm so, so sorry for the long hiatus. Real life was being deliberately difficult.
> 
> English is not my first language and, as always, I'm sorry for mistakes.
> 
> And one day I'll probably write porn that isn't cheesy bottomlock. Or maybe I'll just keep writing this. Who knows.
> 
> Thank you for reading. <3
> 
> [My tumblr](http://atikiapparently.tumblr.com)  
>  


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